Time is of the Essence
by Olivia Wood
Summary: ABANDONED Following the events of the later chapters of OoP, Harry makes a split-second decision that gets him into more trouble than he ever bargained for. Now he must decide how much he is willing to sacrifice for those he never had the chance to love
1. Default Chapter

**Time is of the Essence**

**Author's Notes:** In case you haven't noticed, the first four paragraphs are shamelessly stolen, word for word, out of the Order of the Pheonix, (which I do not own.) Neither do I own any other part of that pure, undiluted brilliance otherwise known as the Harry Potter universe – a fact which is self-evident, I would think, since unlike _some_ people, I am not richer than the Queen of England. : ) Thank God and JK Rowling that this is only Fanfiction. 

Chapter 1

"SHE KILLED SIRIUS!" bellowed Harry. "SHE KILLED HIM – I'LL KILL HER!"

And he was off, scrambling up the stone benches. People were shouting behind him but he did not care. The hem of Bellatrix's robes whipped out of sight ahead and they were back in the room where the brains were swimming….

She aimed a curse over her shoulder. The tank rose into the air and tipped. Harry was deluged in the foul-smelling potion within. The brains slipped and slid over him and began spinning their long, colored tentacles, but he shouted, "_Wingardium__ Leviosa!_" and they flew into the air away from him. Slipping and sliding he ran on toward the door. He leapt over Luna, who was groaning on the floor, past Ginny, who said, "Harry – what - ?" past Ron, who giggled feebly, and Hermione, who was still unconscious. He wrenched open the door into the circular black hall and saw Bellatrix disappearing through a door on the other side of the room – beyond her was the corridor leading back to the lifts.

He ran, but she had slammed the door behind her and the walls had begun to rotate again. Once more he was surrounded by streaks of blue light from the whirling candelabra.

Harry let out a roar of frustration as the wall rumbled to a halt. He sprinted across to the door directly in front of him and pushed it open. The familiar spots of sparkling light flitted across the walls; it was the bell jar room. Harry was just about to try another door when a sparkle of movement caught his eye. It was the glass-fronted cabinet that the Death Eater had knocked down earlier, still crashing to the floor, spilling and shattering its contents, bouncing back up and reassembling itself, then shattering again, over and over. 

Time-Turners. The cabinet was full of Time-Turners. If Harry could get one he could go back to the past and stop Bellatrix. He could stop Sirius from dieing. He could save Sirius, just like before, just like in third year, with Hermione…

Harry was across the room and two feet away from the cabinet when it smashed again, sending shards of glass flying, and he was forced to jump back. None of the tiny fragile hourglasses survived the fall. Harry would have to time it just right and grab one when the cabinet reassembled. He stuffed his wand in his pocked as he waited for the right moment. Then he dodged the fragments of wood and glass as they flew back to rearrange themselves, pulled open the newly mended glass front of the display, grabbed one of the Time-Turners, and quickly backed up a good five feet in case the whole thing fell down again.

Heart pounding painfully in his chest, Harry surveyed the miniscule, intricate object that was resting in the moist palm of his clutched hand, unnaturally cool and heavy. It was no more than an inch in height, made entirely out of glass, with an inlaid golden design on either end, and a swirling silver substance that reminded Harry of Dumbledore's pensieve where the sand should have been. It had no string. 

Not quite sure what to do, Harry flipped the hourglass over and watched the silvery stuff spill from top to bottom, clutching the Time-Turner as tightly as he dared all the while. 

For a second nothing happened. Then, just as in front of him the cabinet smashed to the floor, the glass timepiece in Harry's hand exploded. Harry's vision swam as he staggered against a nearby bookshelf in shock, hardly registering the pain. Blood ran over the glass fragments embedded in his palm and down his arm, mixing with the cloud of silver dust that had erupted from within the hourglass. The dust clouded his vision and made his eyes water. Suddenly nauseous, Harry sank to his knees. It was all he could do to tilt his hand and let the shattered remains of the Time-Turner fall to the floor in a dribble of his own blood. He stared at it for a few moments, fascinated with the way it sparkled bright scarlet as it mingled with the silver dust.

Someone screamed. Startled, Harry fumbled for his wand with his left hand. The Death Eaters. Bellatrix. His brain didn't seem to be working properly. He couldn't find his wand. The screaming continued, mixed with new shouts, yells…. people were moving outside of Harry's range of vision. 

Sluggishly, he staggered to his feet and found himself not two feet away from the point of a wand. It was being held by a blond-haired witch wearing pale blue robes that matched her eyes perfectly. Her lack of the black attire combined with the fact that she hadn't cursed him yet seemed to suggest she wasn't a Death Eater, but then how would Harry really know? Either way, he couldn't get himself worked up over it. He was too tired, too much had happened. Nothing seemed very important at the moment… everything was fuzzy… Sirius was dead… Harry couldn't think. 

The witch's eyes went wide as she surveyed Harry's face, and for a moment she reminded him of someone, but he couldn't think who…

"Emma," the blond-haired woman said after a moment, her voice and wand arm steady, and Harry noticed a pale, round-eyed witch who was shaking slightly a few desks over. She must have been the one who screamed, Harry thought vaguely. There were other people standing behind her, some of them with their wands out, all wearing the same pale blue robes… "Go get Lily."

Lily groaned at the stack of paperwork still piled up on her desk. Nobody ever told her, when she applied for the job, that she would be doing so much tedious paperwork. Already it felt like she had been in her office for hours. Not that there was anything wrong with her office. It wasn't the biggest office in the world, true, but it was cozy, and tastefully decorated in dark reds and blues… Plus, she had a window, which was more than anyone else in the department could say. 

She glanced at it now; the sun was still high up in the sky. Of course, that didn't really mean anything; the weather wizards had taken to extending the daylight hours little by little each week as the number of people regularly working overtime increased. It was a grim sort of inside joke for ministry personnel to equate how well the war was going to how early the sun set. 

Lily sighed and pulled the top sheet of parchment towards her. "Summation of Potential Applications of Time-Related Magics in Dark Arts Activity…" she read off the top of the parchment, frowning and rubbing her nose with the fluffy end of her quill. The Minister wanted to know the worst Voldemort could do. That's what it always was, what their research had been confined to since the start of the war, since long before Lily ever thought of becoming an Unspeakable. Lily suppressed the urge to doodle on the corner of the document. She hardly even knew what they would be doing if it wasn't for Voldemort. There was no department in the Ministry of Magic that was unaffected by the war….

How did they expect her to concentrate with that racket going on? It was almost worse than the time the Thought Division had supposedly investigated the impact of honeybees on the workings of the human mind, and that had been a spectacular disaster. She was just contemplating the risks of going out to see what the trouble was when the door of her office flew open and banged into the front of her desk. Lily winced. 

It was one of the new aides, her nervous brown eyes wide, her hair rumpled, and her round face unusually pale.

"What is it?" Lily asked, startled at the witch's disheveled appearance and nervous manner, all thoughts of paperwork long gone.

"They – " the witch said shakily, but she seemed to be regaining her composure. "Helen wants you in the main room."

"Why? What happened?" asked Lily, but she dropped her quill immediately and squeezed around her desk to follow the aide out of the office, grabbing her wand out of her robe pocket as she went. "What does Helen want me for?"

"I don't really know…" said the witch as they wound their way through the labyrinth of corridors and offices that made up the bulk of the Department of Mysteries. "Somebody Apparted into the Time room and they had blood all over their robes."

"Oh?" said Lily as she sped up. People weren't supposed to be able to Apparate into the Ministry of Magic. 

"Uh-uh," the aide continued breathlessly as they reached their destination. "I was the first one to see him." Lily pulled open the door and encountered a solid wall of blue-robed Unspeakables crowded between the shelves. Undeterred, she pushed her way through to the front of the group, and saw immediately what the problem was. Surrounded by all the blue-robed ministry officials, the small black-robed figure stuck out like a sore thumb. Helen, as intimidating as ever, was covering the figure with her wand, although he didn't look especially threatening. Blood was indeed dripping down his right arm, but he was holding it in front of him as if it was injured, not as if he had just finished murdering someone. Helen was asking him for his name, but the wizard only stared around the room dazedly. The Hogwarts Gryffindor house crest was visible on the front of his robes. And he was soaked from head to foot in a slimy greenish substance that smelled suspiciously like the suspension potion they used in the Thought Division.

It wasn't until she was level with Helen and had her wand held firmly in her fist that Lily realized why Helen had sent for her specifically. Despite his hair being soaking wet and plastered down against his skull, the wizard looked exactly like James. 

Well, not _exactly_ like James, thought Lily as startled green eyes locked onto her own. Those were her eyes… Harry's eyes?

Lily's jaw dropped as realization hit her. They were in the Time room. Apparation was impossible here, but Time-Travel wasn't. Was this _Harry_? 

The green eyes in front of her never left her face. He was younger than James, his nose was shorter, his glasses different… "Harry?" she croaked finally, her throat dry. Mutely, the boy nodded. Lily found herself being helped into a chair behind one of the nearby desks.

Helen took charge of the situation immediately. Identification, Dark-Detection, and cleaning spells were cast, desks and shelves in danger of falling were straightened, the fragmented remains of a Time-Turner were carefully retrieved from within the bloody puddle on the floor and various cuts on the boy's palm, which were then promptly disinfected and sealed, and the boy's wand was confiscated as an added precaution. All of this was meticulously documented and categorized by three independently working aides, and through all of it Lily could do noting more than stare dumbly at the boy who's first birthday she had celebrated only three months previously. Harry, his identity now confirmed, seemed to be having a similar reaction. He didn't object as Helen pushed him into the seat across from Lily, but didn't drink the bright pink truth potion she pressed into his hand

Helen herself remained standing imperiously. "So," she said. The boy looked up at her. "Drink the potion. It's a truth serum," she prodded impatiently. Harry looked from Helen to the glass of pink liquid in his hand, nonplussed, then up at Lily, who nodded slightly. He looked away from her quickly, a nauseous expression on his face, (whether from the prospect of drinking the potion or from something else, Lily didn't know), and gulped down a few mouthfuls of serum. 

"So," Helen repeated, crossing her arms in front of her chest. "State your name, age, and date of birth."

He hesitated for a moment, as if testing whether the potion would compel him to speak, before replying, "Harry James Potter, 15, July 31, 1980." 

As always, Helen was unimpressed, "What are you doing in this time period?"

"What am I…?"

"Why are you here, in 1981?"

"I – I didn't mean - "

"How did you come to be here?"

"I – The Time-Turner – "

"How did you get to the Department of Mysteries?"

"How did I – uh, by thestral." There was a ringing silence for a few seconds, broken only by the incessant ticking noise of the various clocks that were scattered throughout the room.

"Helen, maybe you should let me…?" asked Lily tentatively. 

"You realize how much extra paperwork this is going to cause?" burst out Helen, and the crowd of Unspeakables in the room shifted uncomfortably, backing slowly away from her. "We'll be spending months cleaning this up! Months that could have been spent on actual _research_! I didn't cut short my maternity leave for this! You don't see _my daughter_ running wild in the Department of Mysteries!" she shot at Lily accusingly, and as her eyes bulged out of her head a flash of recognition lit up in Harry's eyes.

"You're Luna's mom! Yeah, she was with me but she didn't…" he trailed off suddenly, lost in thought, and spent a few moments staring at the table. Helen's jaw shut audibly.

"Don't record that," she snapped at the three aides who were now documenting the conversation, and sat down at the desk besides Lily. "Go ahead, Lily."

"Er, right," said Lily, perfectly aware that she would have found the expression on Helen's face hilarious if she wasn't feeling so numb herself at the moment. "Maybe – Harry – maybe you should explain how you came to be here, in the present - uh, past, I mean - and what you were doing in the Department of Mysteries?"

He glanced up at her, then back down at the desk, his hands twisting in his lap. "I, um, I didn't mean to go back so far…" he finished lamely.

"Why were you trying to go back at all?" asked Lily gently, but Harry just shook his head, not looking at any of them. 

"Okay, that's not important," said Helen decisively after a moment, quickly regaining her composure but sounding much calmer and much more sane now that her manic frustration was all spent. "What happened to the Time-Turner? Why was it broken? And what is it that you're soaked in?" she added after a second.

"The Time-Turner?" Harry repeated weakly. "I don't really know why it broke. The De – Someone knocked the cabinet over and it kept on crashing and falling back together again… I grabbed a Time-Turner when it fell back together, but it exploded after I turned it over. And this is the stuff from the tank in the brain room."

Helen didn't even ask about the potion. "You grabbed a magical artifact form a field of dimensional discontinuity? So you had absolutely no idea what you were doing."

"Right." More silence.

"Maybe somebody should get Edward," a male voice suggested from between two bookshelves to Lily's left. 

Helen scoffed. "Edward's not even here. And in his absence, as Deputy Head of Department, I am perfectly capable of handling the situation. So," she said decisively. "It is pointless to level accusations at this time. I'm sure whoever's responsible for this will be dealt with in the future, and for all we know the Department might not be so secure fifteen years from now. The boy really shouldn't be telling us anything. What we need to concern ourselves with now is damage control." She turned to one of the wizards behind Lily. "How long will it take to reassemble that Time-Turner?"

"A couple of months, at least - unless we stagger the schedule again? And even then that's assuming all of the pieces got here with him. There's a high probability that the force of - "

"So that's too long for him to be able to stay here." Helen cut him off. "I suggest we release him into Lily's custody; he is her son, after all. Does anyone have any objections? No? Good." Lily stared at her speechlessly. "Now that that's settled, I should remind you, boy, that you must reveal as little about the future as possible. Any changes you make will endanger your own existence and that of the world as you know it. If you have any questions, I'm sure Lily would be delighted to answer them. Lily, dear, perhaps you should take the rest of the day off, get things settled down, introduce your son to your husband, so on and so forth. I'm sure someone else can finish doing whatever it is that you were doing." And with that she pulled Lily and Harry to their feet and gave them a little push towards the door. "That Potion isn't toxic, but you probably still want to get it off," she said to Harry, before turning to the room at large. "I'm making this case top priority! Well? Why is everyone still standing around?" she yelled at the blue-robed crowd, and the Unspeakables bustled back to work as Lily lead the way to the exit through the circular hallway where the little bespectacled old witch who kept track off all the traffic in and out of the department held her office.

Lily signed herself and her son out in the register at the witch's desk, wondering numbly if the fact that that Harry wouldn't sign in for another 15 years would cause any problems. "Have a nice day, dears," called the old woman cheerfully as Lily said, "Exit," and led the way out to the stone corridor. 

"All you have to do is _ask_?" said Harry incredulously.

"Yeah," Lily looked at him, still not really over the shock of what his presence entailed; the cleaning charms hadn't gotten off all the potion and he looked sticky. "I think Dumbledore came up with it when he worked here… some kind of security precaution… I don't really get it…" They passed the pair of Security Wizards guarding the entrance to the department.

To say that Lily felt awkward would be akin to saying that no, Voldemort wasn't the nicest person in the world. Their footsteps echoed down the stone corridor. She had worked with Time-Travel for some time now, and found it fascinating, but being confronted with the reality of it in such an abrupt and brutal fashion was disconcerting, to say the least. This was _Harry_, she mused. This was her baby. He looked just like him, just like James did when he was fifteen, but her baby was _tiny_. This Harry was only six years younger than she was! Lily liked to think of herself as a good mother, but that meant being a good mommy to a one-year-old toddler. She hadn't reckoned on having to deal with a teenager for ten years at least. She could change diapers and sing lullabies, but she had absolutely no idea what to say to this strange fifteen-year-old boy, _who was just as tall as she was_, she noticed suddenly. What the hell did Helen expect her to do? 

And he was covered in _goo_. People stared at them in the elevator and all the way along the Atrium to the Floo exits. Harry seemed oblivious to all the strange looks he was getting, but it was a small comfort to Lily that he was apparently just as much at a loss in regards to dealing with her as she was in regards to him. In fact, he still seemed to be in shock. Lily didn't know how she felt. It was surreal. 

They reached the right grate and Lily pointed out the Floo dispenser, "You go first, I'll Apparate."

"Where do I go?" he asked.

"349 Kneazel-Grass Road."

"349 Kneazel-what?

"Kneazel-Grass Road," answered Lily, slightly surprised. Did they no longer live there? She supposed it was foolish to think they would still live in the same house fifteen years from now, what with the war and all, but she liked living there, and would at least expect her son to know the address of his childhood home… Her son… This was too weird. 

Lily strained to clear her head as Harry disappeared in a burst of emerald flames. She forced herself to visualize her beautiful little pale yellow house with the blue accents, the red roof, cobbled pathway, and exotic front garden… grabbed her wand and Apparated with a pop.

Seconds later she was jogging up said cobbled path and through the front door. Harry was standing in front of the fireplace in the living room, now covered in soot as well as goo. He really looked spectacular. She would have been laughing her head off if the circumstances had been any different. As it was, she only felt strangely queasy.

"The first door on the left is a bathroom," she said mechanically. "I'll go get you some clean robes." Lily pointed Harry down the hall and went off to find James. He was reading in their bedroom, besides the crib that Lily had charmed to rock by itself, and in which the sleeping form of her baby boy now lay. James smiled brightly and stood when he saw Lily, and probably would have said something witty and charming if she hadn't jumped at him and pulled him into a fierce kiss. 

"What's wrong, Lily?" he asked immediately as they broke apart, quite serious, concern evident in his eyes. "What happened?" Lily pushed away from him and flung open the closet doors.

"James, I need some of your old robes," she said as she searched frantically through the closet for something that would fit Harry. "Do you still have that blue set you got for Christmas that were too small for you?"

"What? Yeah, they're on the top shelf. Lily, why…?" he followed her back out of the bedroom and across the living room. Lily knocked on the door to the bathroom and passed the robes inside. 

"Why are you home so early? Who's in there? Lily?" She smiled at him in a very strange, worrisome manner. "Honey?"

"Harry," she said.

"What?"

"It's Harry."

"What about Harry?"

"Harry's in there."

"Harry who?"

"Harry Potter."

"Our Harry? Harry's in there?"

"Yes."

"In the bathroom?"

"Yes, in the bathroom."

"No he's not. Harry's in the bedroom."

"Yes. He is. Harry's in there." James would have thought she was joking if it wasn't for the expression on her face; she still wore that strange, strained smile, but she looked like she was about to cry. He pulled her into a hug and made her sit down on the couch with him. "You really shouldn't be so surprised, James."

He put his arm around her and held her to him. "What do you mean?"

"I mean you shouldn't be surprised that Harry is in the bathroom."

James was quite worried now. He scrutinized her for a second, the possibility of everything from the Confundus Charm to the Imperius Curse already running through his mind. That smile was unnerving. "Harry's in there all by himself?" he said finally, tentatively, as if worried about her sanity, which, in fact, he was.

 "Yes."

"And what is he doing in there?" he said slowly and clearly.

"Well, I assume he's taking a shower."

"And why is he taking a shower?"

"He was all covered in soot and potion - Honestly, James! Why do people take showers?"

"Uh-uh. Are you feeling okay, Lily?"

"I'm fine, James." She tried to get up but James pulled her back down. "You don't believe me, do you?" she said accusingly.

"No. Of course I believe you. Sit down, Lily!" he yelled as she tried to pull free again. "I believe you! If you say that right now Harry's in the bathroom taking a shower then I believe you. But how do you explain that I know for a fact that Harry is sleeping in his crib, in the bedroom, _right now_?"

"Well, that's a funny story, really." 

"Really?"

"No, not really. James," the odd smile fell off of her face and she turned in her seat to face him with a serious, intense expression. "You know how I work in the Department of Mysteries?"

"Yeah…?"

"And you know how I work in the Time Division?"

"Lily?" 

"And you know how I occasionally work with Time-Travel?" She sounded quite hysterical.

"Lily, what happened?" James asked, though he thought he could see where this was going.

"Well, today one of the aides came into my office and said Helen wanted to see me, and so I went and Harry was there with a broken Time-Turner stuck in his hand and blood pouring all down his arm, completely covered in Thought suspension potion." The Muggle clock ticked on the mantelpiece as James tried to work though what she had just said.

"And?"

"And that's it."

"So our Harry just showed up in the Department of Mysteries?"

"Yes."

"Our Harry?"

"Yes, our Harry! Do we have to go through all this again? He was our Harry except fifteen years older!"

"Okay, okay… Calm down! So what was he doing there?"

"What do you mean, what was he doing? He just got done Time-Traveling!"

"Why was he Time-Traveling?" Lily shrugged. "You don't know why…." James ran his hand though his hair dazedly. "And he's in the bathroom now? And that's why you needed the robes?"

Lily nodded and sniffed self-pityingly, "Helen released him into my custody."

There was a moment's pause, then James leaned back on the couch and laughed. Lily frowned at him. "Is that all you've got to say?"

James couldn't stop himself from grinning at her. "Fifteen years from now, you're going to be really, _really_ angry." He was rewarded with an elbow in the ribs.

"This is serious!"

"Of course it's serious!" But he couldn't wipe the smirk off his face. "Are you sure you're not joking?"

"James!"


	2. The Second Chapter

**Time is of the Essence**

**Author's Notes:** Thank you to everyone who reviewed the first chapter. My love for you all is without bounds. : ) If you're still with me, I apologize for the long wait… (Blame computer troubles, school, illness, and sheer laziness. Sorry.)  Updates should get more frequent once school ends, and I have no more AP exams and such to distract my attention from what really counts. ; )

**Chapter 2**

Harry had showered and dressed as quickly as he could, in a rather desperate attempt to stop himself from having to think. Now, however, as he stood in front of the sink, squeaky clean and fully attired in dark blue cotton, with nothing left to do but open the bathroom door and face reality, he was struck with the absurdity of the situation. How could this have happened to him? How could it be that only yesterday he had been happily failing his Divinations O.W.L. and everything had been more or less all right with the world? How could his relatively peaceful existence – relatively being the key word - have come crashing down so suddenly? One minute he was at Hogwarts, the next Sirius was falling through the veil, and now he was here. Here, in a strange bathroom, in some strange house, wearing some stranger's robes. 

Harry really didn't want to open that door. Whatever was out there, he knew he wouldn't like it, and if he opened the door, he would have to deal with it. 

Maybe it wasn't really happening. _Maybe I'm back in Privet Drive and the Dursleys have remodeled the downstairs bathroom_, he thought wildly, scrutinizing the room for any sign of familiar architecture. But no, that soap was definitely magical; the Dursleys would have nothing to do with it. But he could be at Hogwarts; there were plenty of rooms at the school that he had never been in and wouldn't recognize. There was no reason to suppose that he wasn't at Hogwarts… Or maybe he was asleep. People who are asleep can't actually tell that they're asleep, right? He must be dreaming; that was all…

Except that he knew that he wasn't. He knew it was real, and that nebulous yet unmistakable quality of _realness_ made it all infinitely more disturbing than even the most gruesome nightmare Voldemort could have hoped to plant in Harry's mind. It was absurd, really, how easily he had fallen for that cheap imitation of the Department of Mysteries. It had been less real than the most fleeting of dreams, had none of the arbitrary details, none of the flaws, none of the _texture_ of real life. Now that Harry thought back on it, he doubted Voldemort had even bothered to include a _smell_. The whole thing had been an obvious forgery, he had just been too caught up in the moment to realize it. But this was different; this was so undeniably real that it scared him.

Harry stared at his reflection in the mirror behind the counter. He assumed it was a Muggle mirror, since it had so far refrained from commenting on the state of his hair. He was glad; he needed the privacy. It was all too much to take in. Sirius was dead. And Harry had done something extremely stupid, and was now going to have to face the consequences. 

It seemed he had done an extremely large amount of extremely stupid things this year. One long chain of stupidity, ever since he was born. Well maybe not that long, babies couldn't really do much. Ever since he came to Privet Drive, then. It really was no wonder that the Dursleys hated him. He was hopeless. Sirius died because of him. Cedric had died because of him. Voldemort returned using his blood. Hermione, Ron, everyone he cared about had been hurt. It was his fault. All his fault, his responsibility, ever since he got that scar, which now lay unusually subdued behind his bangs, blending in with his skin like an ordinary cut, hardly noticeable at all… Sirius had spent twelve years in Azkaban because of him. His parents had- 

Harry blinked. It was true, his parents _had_ died because of him, but they were alive now. What did that mean? Did that mean they _would_ die because of him? _Hermione will kill him me when she finds out what I did, messing with a Time-Turner like that_, he thought distractedly. But then Hermione could be dead now. That curse… and Ron… But no, she wouldn't be dead _now_. She had just been born, nothing had happened yet. Sirius hadn't died yet. He hadn't even gone to Azkaban…

But _would_ he die? Harry had seen him die, had seen his body fall through the veil. Did that mean it was inevitable? That it would happen no matter what Harry did, no matter how much he wanted it otherwise?

And what _could_ he do? 

It was all too much. Harry needed to sleep. He needed to go to bed and sleep, and then maybe he could wake up and be back at Hogwarts and realize it was all a dream and forget all about it and not have to think about it anymore - not have to think about anything at all. 

He might have stood there forever, not opening the door and staring at his reflection until he collapsed of exhaustion and spent the night on the cold tiles, locked in so that no one could disturb him… As it happened, the sound of screaming penetrated the bathroom door and Harry wrenched it open on instinct before he could gather his rather scattered thoughts. It wasn't until he was out in the hallway that Harry remembered he didn't have his wand. By that time, however, he had a clear view of the scene in the living room, and recognized, with a mixture of relief and what could only be described as barely subdued panic, that he probably wouldn't need it. Probably.

It was now apparent that the woman who had screamed was in fact the same red-haired, green-eyed witch whom Harry had followed here from the Department of Mysteries. His mother – Lily Potter. She was currently yelling profanities and pounding on the chest of a thin, messy-haired man who was holding her in a tight embrace and talking soothingly at her while trying to hide the amusement on his face, rather unsuccessfully, Harry thought. His calming words had absolutely no effect on the woman in his arms, and his smirk only served to infuriate her further, causing her cursing to grow that much louder and that much more obscene.

Harry had just enough time to register the destruction of every single one of his remaining comforting childhood delusions about his parents, and to consider the viability of returning to the bathroom and locking the door behind him, before the dark-haired man caught sight of him in the hallway. 

Harry knew, intellectually, that the man was his father, but he couldn't quite will himself to believe it; after all, for as long as he could remember, James Potter had been dead. James' jaw dropped open promptly and he loosened his hold on his wife, allowing her to wrench free. But Lily seemed sufficiently satisfied with James' shocked expression to deem the resumption of her attack unnecessary. She visibly took a deep, calming breath before turning around and facing Harry with an almost-genuine-looking smile on her face. "The robes fit you, then? I thought they might," she said cheerfully.

Harry couldn't bring himself to smile back. Retreating seemed foolish at this point, however, and his options were limited: he nodded, mouth dry.

"Er…" Lily struggled for words in the face of Harry's silence. "This is James. Your father," she added needlessly. James didn't look like he would be getting over the shock of seeing his fifteen-year-old son in the flesh anytime soon, and continued to gape at Harry. Lily elbowed him in the ribs. Repeatedly.

"Oh, right. I'm James," he repeated somewhat stupidly, and held out a tentative hand. 

Harry hesitated a moment before walking the few steps into the living room and extending his own to shake it cautiously. "Harry," he said blandly, and let his hand drop back to his side. They stared at each other silently for a few moments, and Harry, quite unintentionally, found himself comparing this older version of James to the one he had seen in Snape's pensieve. Overall James had changed very little: he was definitely taller, and his features were a bit more defined, but his hair was still as messy as ever, and he still bore a striking resemblance to Harry himself. Or at least, he had changed very little _physically_, Harry thought. James would have had to have changed considerably for Lily to agree to marry him…. or was it she that had changed?

Harry's eves wandered to his mother's face. She cleared her throat self-consciously and motioned to the sofa. James took the hint and plopped down onto the cushions gratefully. Lily joined him. Harry sat down in the armchair opposite the coffee table. The silence became increasingly awkward.

"So…" Lily began, but James cut her off abruptly. "Do you play Quidditch?"

"Quidditch?" Harry asked absently. He was still staring at his mother's eyes, which had the same dark rims and bluish-yellow highlights as his own… It was kind of weird, wasn't it, how he had gotten his mother's eyes but his father's eyesight… Why had he never thought about that before? He didn't know much about genetics, but it struck his as faintly suspicious… but then what did Quidditch have to do with anything? "Yeah, I play Quidditch."

Lily looked like she wanted to say something, but James ignored her and continued, "What position?"

"Seeker," Harry replied impassively.

James nodded. "I played Chaser, mostly," he said matter-of-factly, "but Seekers are okay too. Are you any good?"

"James," Lily cut in, as Harry shrugged, "I really don't think this is the time to talk about _Quidditch_."

James looked just a little put out. "What are we supposed to talk about, then?"

"Well," she began in a very condescending tone, "Seeing as _our son_ has just traveled a_ decade and a half_ into the past, and will be staying with us _indefinitely_, I think there's some _slightly_ more important issues to work out first."

"Right then," said James, apparently completely recovered from his initial stupefaction, which was a lot more than Harry could say for himself. He still felt dazed, and wondered vaguely if he was in shock. "The future. So, do the Chuddley Cannons ever win a match? We could bet on it and win a fortune!"

"James, you imbecile!" Lily made to elbow him again, but James managed to dodge out of her reach, grinning. "I was kidding, sweetheart! Kidding!" He laughed a bit nervously as Lily glowered. "And I'm not the one swearing in front of the kid!" he added.

Lily rolled her eyes. "Sorry, Harry."

James nodded serenely. "Yes, sorry, Harry. You caught us at a bad time…" Lily eyed James suspiciously for a moment, but he shrugged and she turned back to her son. As soon as she did, James mouthed "P.M.S." at Harry behind her back. Harry stared at his father incredulously; he was starting to think that he had truly been better off at the Dursleys' after all. Speaking of which….

"Exactly what year is it?" he asked abruptly.

"It's 1981," said Lily promptly, visibly relieved that the focus of the conversation had return to something relevant. "22nd October. What year did you come from?"

"June 12, 1996," he replied almost automatically, sluggishly trying to orient this new piece of knowledge within what he already knew about his own personal history. He would be just over a year old now, and it was _October_. He knew there was something important about that fact. Something he should be aware of… October _22nd_. An ambiguous feeling of dread began to build in the pit of Harry's stomach.

"So you're sixteen?" James sounded surprised.

Harry looked up. James was running his hand through the back of his hair, a habit Harry remembered from his brief foray into Snape's pensieve earlier that year. Beside him, Lily's thin, reddish eyebrows were scrunched up in thought as she stared sightlessly off into the area behind Harry's left knee. "Almost," Harry said warily. "Why?"

James shrugged. "You look younger… scrawny, you know?" Lily's eyes snapped up abruptly to scowl at her husband.

In all probability, Harry would have been deeply insulted if anyone else had said it in any different situation, but as it was, he was too preoccupied with trying his hardest _not_ to contemplate the mortality of the man and woman in front of him – his parents – and Sirius, and his friends back in the Department of Mysteries - to be overly concerned about vague insults. So he settled for being mildly put off, and his face reflected the corresponding expression as he replied, "I look just like you did when you were sixteen."

"I was never that short," James disagreed. 

Lily shot her husband an exasperated look, but addressed her son, "So you're a sixth year, then?" Harry nodded, even though it wasn't quite true: he'd already taken the end of year exams, but as term hadn't officially ended yet, he was technically still a fifth year.  Somehow he was not quite keen to go into insignificant details at the moment, however. His thoughts were still too muddled. How long had it been since he'd arrived in the Department of Mysteries? It felt like days, but he knew it couldn't have been more than a few hours. How long had it been since Sirius fell through the veil? Harry glanced at the windows and was a little disconcerted to see the sky glowing a soft red as the sun retreated behind the trees. Back where – or when, rather -  he had come from, the sun had set a long time ago…

They lapsed into silence again. Lily looked like she wanted to say something more, but didn't know how to phrase it. James must have decided to follow her lead because he kept quiet and watched the pair of them, his wife and son, curiously, occasionally rubbing his undoubtedly bruised ribs.

Harry tried to think of something to say; it seemed that if he didn't, no one else would. Something was nagging at the back of his brain, and it annoyed him that he couldn't focus properly… It was October… there was something important about October… and then it hit him, and it was so obvious, really, that he didn't know how he could have thought of anything else. "When - When are you going into hiding?" he asked abruptly, trying not to startle them by injecting too much emotion into the words. His parents looked blankly back at him. "I mean, you said it was October 22, right?" James nodded his agreement. "So that's, like, um - a week and two days until Halloween, so you should be…" he trailed off at the bemused expressions on their faces. 

Hadn't Flitwick said that fateful day in the Three Broomsticks that his parents had known Voldemort was after them more than two weeks before the attack? Yesterday Harry could have sworn on it, but upon seeing the obviously clueless looks on James' and Lily's faces, he wasn't so sure. They had died on Halloween, and it was nine days until then now. His parents should have cast the Fidelius Charm already … and yet clearly they had no idea what he was talking about. Maybe he got the year wrong… it was 1981, and he came from 1996… fifteen years difference… It seemed to add up, but Harry wasn't willing to trust his arithmetic skills alone on a day that started with a night spent studying for a History exam and ended fifteen years too early. "How old am I?" he asked impulsively.

Lily looked puzzled at the apparent non sequitor, but James narrowed his eyes suspiciously. "You're sixteen. You just said."

"No, I mean, the other me. The one form this time."

"Our Harry?" Lily asked. He nodded. "He's one year, two months, and 22 days old," she said with a hint of pride.

"Right," he nodded absently. He knew that he had been one at the time of his parent's death, so no matter how little confidence he had in his power of subtraction, by all accounts they really did have only nine days to live. Dementor-echoes of his parents' last moments rose to the forefront of Harry's mind, and he suppressed a shudder, forcing himself to follow his train of thought through to the end. 

What was he getting wrong? Perhaps Flitwick's information was inaccurate? Harry didn't know how close the tiny Professor had been to his parents, but more than likely he had gotten his information after the fact (the Fidelius Charm was supposed to be a secret, after all) and as such the reliability of his sources could be called into question. McGonagall had been there too, though, and she was close enough to Dumbledore to have heard the story directly form him… unless he specifically chose not to tell her. On the other hand, Fudge had agreed with the both of them, and Harry doubted anyone at all would have confided in him. Where did that leave Harry? What did he know for sure?

"I take it something was supposed to have happened right about now," Lily said carefully, "and we were supposed to have gone into hiding?" Harry nodded again. His parents exchanged an inscrutable glance before turning their attention back to Harry. "Why?"

"I don't know if I should tell you…" Harry began, then he bit his lip and took a moment to really consider his statement. Why did Voldemort go after his parents? "Actually, I _can_ tell you: I don't know. I kind of figured you would."

"Uh uh," James raked his hand through his hair again, making it even more messy than usual. "Well, I can't think why we would… Unless - I mean, we're practically in hiding already, what with the wards on the house and everything, but that's nothing new, really…"

"It must have something to do with you, Harry," interrupted Lily. "In fact, I think it would be a good idea if we all stayed put for a while. It would be safer for everyone."

The conversation disintegrated once more as a worried frown creased Lily's face and her gaze drifted off to rest on the now cold and empty grate that made up the focus of the room. Harry tried not to fidget as he ignored James' half-hidden scrutiny. He had always thought he would have liked meeting his parents, but now that it was actually happening, he would have given anything to be anywhere else. The cupboard under the stairs at the Dursleys' came to mind – it may have been cramped and dark and infested with spiders, but it was also familiar and safe. Harry didn't know how to act around his parents – he had never had any. 

From as far back as he could remember, he had always adored the idea of his parents, without actually knowing anything about them; for the first eleven years of his life he hadn't even known their names. After he had come to Hogwarts they had represented an impossible ideal, a model of perfection that he had strived to emulate. That image had been irrevocably tarnished by the events he had witnessed in Snape's pensieve, but even afterwards, though he knew they hadn't been perfect – far from it - he had never quite been able to reconcile himself with his parents' humanity. And here he was, being slapped in the face with just that. 

But he couldn't take it in. He couldn't understand it. Harry's status as an orphan had been one of the fundamental constants of his life, and every fiber of his being rebelled against the idea of his parents' very existence. Lily and James were dead. It was a fact even magic couldn't change, and he had never wasted much thought on what it would have been like to meet them. He was totally unprepared for this. He was talking to dead people – ghosts, corpses. It was unnatural… and the worst part was that they didn't know it. How could it be that someone who was supposed to be dead could act so normal? It was _wrong_. 

"When will I be able to go back?" he asked miserably.

Lily blinked. "Well… you'll have to stay here until Helen manages to organize the reassembly of that Time-Turner."

"Can't he just use another one?" asked James.

Lily frowned at him. "No, he can't, James. Honestly, you should know that by now. How many times have we discussed the theory – don't you listen to me _at all_?" The petulant edge to her voice startled Harry; Lily didn't seem like the type of woman to get upset easily… but then he supposed dealing with Time-Traveling offspring would understandably put a strain on anybody's nerves.

"Of course I do, sweetheart," James said quickly, but Harry couldn't help noticing that he avoided meeting his wife's eyes. "But you have to understand that the mere geniuses among us aren't always able to keep up with your uber-geniusness." Lily didn't look convinced. In fact, as her cheeks flushed and her eyes narrowed, she reminded Harry forcefully of Hermione, when she was getting ready for a good long row with Ron.

Harry cleared his throat loudly. "So why can't I use another Time-Turner?"

Lily's eyes returned reluctantly to her only son and James sagged in relief at the absence of their glare. "Well, you could, in theory," she said slowly, "But it would be a very risky business. Time-Turners rely on the fluctuations of the Cross-Slip-Stream Currents of magical energy inherent in the Wider Spectrum – you might know it as the Time Stream?" she added, upon seeing Harry's confusion, "- to provide the necessary pressure to counterbalance the Turner's artificial magical thrust – a principle called Merkele's Lever. So if you were to create an opposing force that would exactly offset the original Turner's magical energy, while taking into account the force exerted by Merkele's Lever and the Perpendicular Tides, you could theoretically return to the point of origin. Of course, even then you would still have to find some way to separate the Relative Present from both of the Turners' Anchors without tangling either Lever, or risk being flung two thousand years into the Stone Age ..."

Harry felt an unexpected pang of sympathy for his father as they exchanged equally blank looks. "In English, please, Lily. Not in uber-genius-speak, remember?" Lily shot James an irritated glare, but obliged. 

"Okay," she said slowly, wrinkling her nose slightly in concentration. "So… think of Merkele's Lever as a rubber band or a spring or something, with one end tied at the present, called the Point of Origin, and the other connected to an Anchor at the Relative Present. The way it normally works, the Time-Turner pushes the Relative Present back a couple of hours and the spring extends just a bit, then it lets Merkele's Lever push – or pull, if we continue with the spring analogy – the Relative Present slowly back towards the Point of Origin, at which point the spring is fully coiled, the Lever nullified, and the natural machinations of Time resume.

She turned to Harry. "So if you use one Turner to travel backwards in Time, and another to travel forwards – never mind that traveling forwards is significantly more complicated then traveling backwards - you've got two opposing Merkele's Levers, two rubber bands pulling against each other, and the whole thing's liable to snap, in which case there's no telling where you'll end up.  

 "And then you have to consider your specific circumstances. Your case is unique in that the Time-Turner that brought you here has been destroyed, yet you're still here – and what's more, your Relative Present is progressing at the same rate as ours, (as far as we can tell, anyway), meaning that either you've somehow managed to slip back into the natural Time Stream – something that's theoretically impossible – or else that your Turner's Anchor is still intact and working against Merkele's Lever despite the lack of any support from a physical bond." She waved her hands around for emphasis as her speech gained momentum. "It would have to be entirely composed of your own magical energy – the energy you originally put into activating the Turner – or almost entirely, as there's bound to be some residual Resonant Duplexes somewhere…" Her familiar, dark green eyes glazed over as she slipped into something remarkably similar to what Ron referred to as Hermione's 'lecture mode.' "Merlin himself theorized the possible existence of such an Anchor, but there's never been much experimental evidence to back up the theory, since not many people are foolish enough to allow their Time-Turners to break outside the Point of Origin – and when added to the fact that yours apparently originated in a Stable Discontinuity…" she trailed off suggestively, now practically bouncing in her excitement. 

James was watching her intently, but Harry got the impression that his attention wasn't exactly focused on what she was _saying_. "I don't think Helen realizes the full ramifications of this case. I mean, speaking objectively, you have the potential of being the most significant case study in the area of Wider Spectrum Fundamentals since the 1600's, when the French philosopher Alminé proved it possible to use the fluctuations in the Magical Slip-Stream to accurately navigate through a previously determined span of Time - he used a single device to repeat the same twenty-eight hours thirty-three times, without getting Merkele's Lever tangled… but on the whole even that experiment was more oriented towards Chronological Mechanics than anything else…" she added breathlessly.

"Uh, Lily?" James interrupted finally. "As much as I enjoy hearing you ramble – you were explaining why Harry can't go back to where he came from using another Turner, remember? Not giving us a lecture on the history of _Time_."

Harry expected Lily to snap back at James, as Hermione undoubtedly would have done, had Ron been foolish enough to interrupt her train of thought, but instead, she only blinked and smiled faintly, her cheeks flushed pink with embarrassment. "Sorry, James," she said sheepishly. James responded with an affectionate grin of his own, and Harry decided then and there to give up trying to understand anyone, ever. "So where was I?"

"You were talking about Merkele's Lever and how it applies to me," Harry supplied helpfully.

"Right." She took a deep breath and rearranged herself deeper into her seat. "Okay, so your Point of Origin is in 1996, and your Relative Present is now, and as far as we can tell your Anchor is undamaged enough to allow Merkele's Lever to push you along through the Spectrum at a rate that coincides exactly with the Time Stream's normal speed. Now, as I said, the simplest way to get a Relative Present back to its Point of Origin and nullify the effect of the Anchor is to allow Merkele's Lever to pull it there naturally – that would take about fifteen years in your case, unfortunately – not our best option. 

"Since most Time-Turners aren't used to travel through more than a couple of hours at a time, an alternative is rarely needed, but some of the Linearly newer models of Time-Turners come equipped with a function that allows for the manual release of the Anchor through the input of a significant amount of magical energy channeled into the Turner's Resonator Duplexes – they're the Magi-Physical particles that make up the Anchor. 

"Usually you have to use a double-helix based Trinometric-Conversion Charm, but depending on the type of Time-Turner used, a standard Dioctigal Spell can also –"

"A what?"

"A standard Dio– Do you take Arithmancy?" Harry shook his head, and Lily looked a bit disappointed. "Oh. Well, then you probably won't know what I'm talking about… " but she rallied bravely, and continued with only a hint less enthusiasm. "Anyway, the point is that you can use a spell to overwhelm the Resonator Duplexes with so much foreign magical energy that they lose their hold on the magic binding them to the Relative Present, which is intrinsically linked to the witch or wizard using the Turner. By severing the Resonator Duplexes from the Relative Present, you are effectively cutting off the Anchor from the witch or wizard's magical energy, which in most cases causes it to disintegrate - although a Dimensional Discontinuity can be formed in certain circumstances. In any case, since the Relative Present is no longer linked to the Anchor, Merkele's Lever will pull it, along with the witch or wizard whose magic initiated the Turner, back to the Point of Origin."

 Harry had never really thought that there would be a time where he would be grateful for his experience in dealing with some of Hermione's more long-winded explanations, but it proved to have been good practice for keeping up with Lily's reasoning. He had enough trouble deciphering her technical speech as it was. "So why can't we do that?" he asked. "Is the Time-Turner I used not, uh, 'Linearly' recent enough?"

Lily's eyebrows creased again. "Well, the thing is, I don't actually know exactly what model Turner you used – but judging from the fact that it managed to transport you fifteen years back, there's a pretty good chance that it did have the manual Anchor release option… but at the moment that's irrelevant, since we can't perform the spell on a broken Time-Turner. I mean, the Resonator Duplexes aren't even there… and if I'm right and your Anchor _is_ made up solely of your own magical energy, we might have trouble sending you home even after the Turner is reassembled."

James looked faintly impressed, most likely with the fact that Harry had managed to pay attention to anything at all that Lily had said.

"So if you can't do the spell on the Turner because the Reso-whatsits aren't there, and the Anchor thing is made up of my own magic anyway, and the spell is supposed to get rid of the Anchor by replacing the magic, can't you just do the spell on me or something?"

"Well, we could," she said, with the barest trace of a grin, "and it would probably work, too, but chances are the surge of energy would kill you, and that would kind of defeat the point, wouldn't it?"

"So he's stuck," put in James.

"He's not stuck, James. What I'm saying is purely conjecture… and nothing is really definite when it comes to Time-Travel Theory, anyway… But I can promise you that Helen will make sure this is all sorted out before long." Lily waved her hand vaguely in Harry's general direction. "I just don't have all the information. I'll get the details when I go to the office tomorrow." 

"And in the meantime I'll have to stay here?"

"Yes, but it'll only be a couple of months, most likely…It won't be so bad," she added quickly, in response to the grim look on Harry's face. "I'm sure you have friends you'll miss and whatnot – and school. You might miss a few days of term, depending on how accurately we can drop you off - but if you want I'm sure James can tutor you. He's not that patient or, ah, _lucid_, most of the time - but, I mean, he _was_ Head Boy, so he must know _some_ stuff… and there's Remus, and I'll help you when I can…"

"Well, gee, thanks, Lily," James interjected sarcastically. Lily continued to ramble, but Harry wasn't paying attention. Only a couple of months? If it was already mid-October, then in less than two weeks the war would be over, Lily and James would be dead, and the native Harry would be sequestered away at the Dursleys – or, at least, that's what _should_ happen. He definitely didn't have two _months_ to sit around doing nothing while waiting for someone to come up with a way to send him back to the present. He'd never been much good at waiting, but he'd learned enough from Hermione at the end of third year to know that Time wasn't something to be trifled with… and it didn't help that the events he was messing with now had considerable _historical_, as well as personal, ramifications. 

"This isn't going to work," he muttered gloomily. Why was it always him that got into these situations? Why couldn't it be, say, Neville, for a change, who got stuck with the critical, history-making decisions? Though, to be quite honest, it was his own stupid fault for using that Time-Turner in the first place that got him into this particular mess… Although if Sirius hadn't gotten himself killed… Harry almost winced at the rush of guilt that accompanied that particular thought; he knew it was a lie. _He_ had gotten Sirius killed by running off to the Department of Mysteries, but he really didn't want to think about that right now. And Harry never would have left Hogwarts if he hadn't gotten that false vision during the History of Magic OWL, and that was… well, that was Harry's fault as well, for not taking the Occlumency lessons seriously. It really seemed that he had dug his own hole on this one, and the realization did nothing to improve Harry's mood.

"What's not going to work?" James cut off Lily's rant on the virtues of Muggle television and its amazing ability to relieve boredom mid-sentence. "I don't see what the problem is – Well, I guess if it was me who had to spend two months fifteen years in the past with my parents, it might have been a bit awkward, but still – are we really that bad?" he asked worriedly.

Harry shook his head, half in frustration that he even needed to have this really, really awkward conversation, whatever it was, and half to clear the unwanted stirrings of guilt that were interfering with the train of his thoughts from his head. "No, it's not that. It's just, I don't have the time for this –" he was more then a little annoyed to hear James laugh.

"How much more time could you have?" James asked as he waved his hand dismissively. "It's like your on vacation, only better! You can spend as long as you want here, do whatever, and you won't be missing more than a couple of days back when you're from. Time's not an issue when you have up to an extra fifteen years of it."

Harry frowned. "That's not what I meant," he said, and his irritation tinged the words. "I know I have Time - that would be kind of hard to forget in the circumstances. What I meant was that, well… _you_ don't have the Time. I can't stay here." The desperation in his voice was painfully obvious to Harry's own ears, no matter how nonchalant he tried to sound, so he was surprised and a bit disgruntled to see James, once again, wave away his words so carelessly.

"Sure you can," his father said enthusiastically. "We have extra bedrooms, and we have plenty of time – or at least I do, what with Lily working all day long – and I actually wouldn't mind some company – not that Harry's not good company, but babies can't really do much, you know? And now that you're fifteen we can do all the things I've always wanted to do with Harry but that Lily said he's too young for," he continued excitedly, "like teaching him to ride a broomstick, or how to degnome a garden with optimum efficiency, or the best hex to cast on an unsuspecting Slytherin…"

"Uh, James," Lily interrupted, amused. "I think it's safe to say Harry already knows how to fly, seeing how he's on the Quidditch team and all. 'Guess you'll have to wait after all. Tough luck."

"Oh," James said, and his eyes lost some of their dreamy quality – but just a bit. "Well, we can always still play Quidditch – that's even better, in fact – And I can teach him how to Apparate instead! You don't already know how to Apparate, do you?" he asked Harry, but before he could reply Lily cut in again.

"I don't know if that's such a good idea, James."

"And why not?" James asked defensively.

"Do you remember what happened in Paris?" she asked, the glitter in her eyes belying her stern tone.

James' eyes narrowed. "What are you insinuating?"

"Just that you're no expert when it comes to Apparation yourself, James, dear."

"I think I can manage, Lily," he retorted. "I was distracted, that time - and so would you be if you had two hags and a leprechaun chasing after you!"

"Yeah? Well just don't expect me to go scouring the countryside for spare bits after you manage to get the two of you splinched."

Quite aside from anything else, all the talk about Apparation was making Harry painfully aware of his present wandless state and the vulnerability that went along with it in the Wizarding World, so when James humph'ed his disdain at Lily's lack of faith, Harry took the opportunity to make his concerns known. "I need a wand," he said, before James could reply in full.

"Good thinking," James said happily, immediately distracted, "You need a wand to Apparate."

They both turned to Lily, who satisfied a sudden urge to fidget with a silver band on the ring finger of her left hand in her lap (her wedding ring? Harry wondered), and chewed on her bottom lip in thought, before replying. "You're not supposed to have one, technically," she said finally, "but I guess we can get you a replacement if you don't go flouting it around in front of any Ministry officials…"

Harry frowned. "How can I not be allowed to have one, when there's a war going on? Isn't there some sort of law protecting people's rights to carry wands?"

"Oh, yeah, the War," James piped up abruptly, and his face clouded for a moment, as if he just remembered that the Wizarding World was indeed currently being terrorized by an insane, powerful evil wizard bent on genocide, and his band or narrow-minded but influential followers, before resuming its previous cheery expression. That smile was seriously starting to annoy Harry. How could anyone be so happy under these circumstances? Didn't James understand what was happening? It was almost Halloween; technically, the man was almost dead, for Merlin's sake. The rational part of Harry's mind knew that his father really _didn't_ know about his upcoming doom, but that knowledge did nothing to make James' current bout of good spirits any less annoying.  "You don't have to worry about that," he said dismissively, and gave Harry a disarming grin, as though that settled the matter.

"Unless someone's shooting Unforgivables at me, right?" Harry muttered under his breath. He hadn't meant for James to hear, but judging by the inquiring expression on his face, complete with raised eyebrow, he obviously had, and Harry was forced to elaborate. "I'm the son of two Order members, one of whom happens to be Muggle-born, and I'm from the future. Isn't that likely to make me a target?"

"He does have a point, James," said Lily. "Which is why I think we should try to keep Harry's presence here as secret as possible."

"But the whole Department of Mysteries know about me already," Harry felt obliged to point out.

"The Department of Mysteries is the most secure department in the whole of the Ministry of Magic," Lily proclaimed. Harry let his skepticism show on his face, but Lily didn't seem to notice. "And we'll have to inform the Order, of course," she continued, "but nobody else will know."

"Voldemort will," Harry said sourly. And that's really all that mattered. Harry knew of at least one Death Eater that worked in the Department of Mysteries, even if he wasn't sure that said Death Eater worked there now, and if his parents told the Order of the Phoenix about him, Pettigrew would find out, and then Voldemort would know for sure. Even if they didn't tell the whole Order, Lily and James would at least want to tell their closest friends, and Harry couldn't very well tell them not to tell Pettigrew without alerting everyone that something was up, and he was pretty sure he didn't want to do that just yet. It seemed that it was that news of his presence would inevitably reach Voldemort, sooner or later. He just hoped nothing tragic would come of it.

Harry looked up to see both his parents looking at him strangely. "What?" he asked, bemused.

Lily cleared her thought a bit nervously and fidgeted with the ring again. "Yes, well," she said finally. "I'll talk to Helen about getting your wand back, then."

James nodded solemnly beside her. "You'll need a wand if I'm going to teach you to Apparate," he said, just as Harry was beginning to think his father was finally treating the situation with the seriousness it deserved. 

"I don't have a permit," he protested, "and I'm underage."

"You don't need one," James said confidently, the grin back on his face. "The Ministry has enough on their hands with, ah, You-Know-Who around to worry about, for a bit of underage Apparation to go unnoticed. Nobody'll care, trust me."

"Wouldn't that that be a bit unethical?" Harry accused, although he wasn't exactly sure why; learning Apparation a few months early was not something he would have objected to normally, but James' carefree, rule-flouting attitude was grating on Harry's already much frazzled and sensitive nerves. He supposed it was Hermione's influence. "You're suggesting we take advantage of the terror and confusion brought about by the War to break the law."

"Don't tell me you've never broken any rules before?" James asked as if such a thing was not only utterly ridiculous, but bordered on sacrilege. "This is the same thing. It's not like we'd be hurting anyone."

"I haven't," Harry contradicted, even though he knew the statement was stretching the truth a bit, mostly to wipe the self-satisfied smirk off of James' face, "at least not without a good reason," he amended self-righteously, "and definitely not the sort of thing you used to do to Snape," he finished, and the memory that came with the words darkened Harry's humor a further three shades.

"Snape?" the grin faded off James' face in the blink of an eye, and the way he spat the name, as if it was slimy, gave Harry the impression that Lily's presence was the only reason he refrained from saying 'Snivellus' instead. "What does _Snape_ have to do with anything?"

"Nothing!" Harry retorted, though he knew it was childish, he was too tired and too annoyed to care, "butthanks for making him hate me, by the way. I had to suffer through five years of Potions because of you." Harry was somewhat surprised to find himself on his feet.

"Snape's still teaching Potions?" James asked, apparently finding the concept nothing short of horrifying. "I kind of hoped he'd die before long." To James' credit, he seemed to realize from the disgust on Harry's face that this had been the wrong thing to say. "I – I mean, he can't be a very good teacher, can he? I don't know what Dumbledore was thinking, hiring him in the first place…" 

Harry made no attempt to hide his disdain, and didn't grace James' comments with a response. Sure, Harry may dislike Snape personally, (and the man _was_ a terrible teacher, even if James couldn't known that) but there was no reason for James to wish him _dead_. 

James' expression turned suddenly serious. "Listen, Harry," he said earnestly, leaning forward in his seat with his elbows on his knees. "I have some very strong reasons to believe that Snape is actually a Death Eater, so – "

"Do you?" Harry scoffed, "And even if he is, can you really blame him, after the way you and Sirius treated him? He wasn't a Death Eater when he was sixteen."

James' jaw fell open, and for the next few moments he was able to do little other then gape back up at his son, speechless, as Harry stared down his nose at him. In some detached, improbably-sane-despite-all-it's-been-through corner of Harry's befuddled mind, he found the whole situation hilarious. After all, how much sense did it make for him to be standing here, defending _Snape_, of all people, to his gob-smacked, oddly not-dead father, fifteen days before the end of Voldemort's first rise to power. Harry wondered, not for the first time, when exactly he had lost control of his life. Or had he ever actually been in control of it? He was never quite able to predict where he would end up, year after year, and it seemed that each annual 'adventure' was more bizarre then the one that preceded it. He wondered if it was a Wizard thing. Muggles went through their lives knowing more of less where they'd end up at the end of the day, knowing where they'd work and what they'd do, secure in the knowledge that they would never inadvertently fall into a situation where they would be confronted with their long-dead parents and forced to decide between changing the past and saving said parents lives, as well as their own one chance at a happy childhood, or ending the first reign of terror of a seriously evil wizard who would come back to life fourteen years later anyway and promptly begin an obsessive series of attempts to wipe out their very existence once and for all, and altogether do his best to make their lives miserable. But then again, Harry supposed most wizards didn't worry about that either. He had never especially liked being special.

Harry became vaguely aware of Lily waving her hand up and down in front of his face, but he was too tired and too amused with his own misfortune to feel uncomfortable. He blinked and smiled down at her blearily.

"Uh, Harry?" she began uncertainly, as though suddenly confused by his presence, or perhaps more accurately, as though suddenly aware that the person who she had hereto regarded as her son was, in fact, quite mad. "Maybe I should show you to your bedroom now, huh? It's really quite selfish of us to keep you up this late – I'm sure you've had a long day, and long range Time-Travel takes a lot of energy, you know…. You'll want to be getting to bed…"

Harry nodded his agreement. Bed sounded good. He had pushed the thought of sleep to the back of his mind during the course of his conversation with James and Lily, but his exhaustion was really starting to get to him, and in retrospect, he was quite surprised he had managed to remain more or less coherent for as long as he had. 

Lily tugged at the sleeve of his robes, and with a last glance at James, who had finally managed to close his mouth and was now watching the two of them bemusedly, he let himself be led out of the living room, up a flight of stairs, half-way down the upstairs hallway, and into an unmistakably Gryffindor themed bedroom. Lily provided him with a pair of matching scarlet pajamas, complete with little golden lions roaring and frolicking across the length of the soft fabric, but Harry didn't bother changing into them. As soon as she closed the door behind her he kicked off his shoes and threw himself on the bed, wrapping his body up in the covers, and remembering to take off his glasses at the last moment.

Then, as he lay there staring at the blank ceiling, he was hit with a moment of panic that his churning thoughts wouldn't allow him the respite of sleep, and for another he feared what his nightmares would reveal to him, for they were sure to provide some gruesome insight into his predicament, staunchly and happily ignored by his waking consciousness, but which would become all too horribly, irrevocably apparent with the insight of dreams. He was gripped with an inexplicable sense of inevitable and ever-approaching doom, but the moment passed, and soon exhaustion dragged his troubled mind past all doubts and into the blessed oblivion of sleep.

Back in the living room, James sat stunned on the sofa for a long while after Lily dragged Harry upstairs. 

It wasn't that James was a stranger to criticism, quite the contrary. Lily had been on his case from the moment they had met, and if he had thought that dating/marrying her would have mellowed her out, he had been sadly mistaken indeed. But the transition from annoying but ignorable fellow Gryffindor, to beautiful Gryffindor girl who happed to hate him but whose opinion didn't matter, to prospective love interest, to girlfriend, to wife had been so gradual that he honestly couldn't recall a time when he had taken her constant reproofs to heart, and the amount of guilt she could inflict was almost negligible.

But to be condemned so abruptly and in so harsh a manner by his first and only son, by the sweet, innocent little baby boy whose diapers James had learned to dutifully change and whose first word had been 'Da-da,' the son who would (and did) look just like him… well, it wasn't something James could take lightly, and, needless to say, it didn't make him feel good at all. 

He supposed he should have expected no less; Harry was Lily's son too, after all, but was it too much to ask for just a little understanding? 

James turned away from the window in irritation. That train of thought was getting him no where, so he abandoned it, and instead tried thinking of Harry as a whole, and what he'd learned in the brief amount of time he and Lily had spend talking to him prior to that little outburst at the end.  Overall, despite the physical characteristics, teenage-Harry was nothing like what James would have expected his son to be… But then, what had he expected? Someone less serious, perhaps? Even Lily, thought she had her stern moments, knew the value of a good laugh. Someone who would have at least _some_ sympathy for his side of the story? Was that too much to ask of his son? Harry was more like a cross between Lily and Remus when it came to… 

The thought gave him pause; Lily wouldn't do that to him, would she? But he shook the thought out of his head almost instantly. James had learned his lesson about accusing Lily of infidelity long ago; if he concentrated hard enough, James could still hear his ears ring from the time he'd confronted her about having lunch with the Hufflepuff Keeper, Joseph Brown, and that had been all the way back in sixth year, when James and Lily had just started going out. Lily and Brown (who had still been good looking back then) had been _just friends,_ the same as Lily and Remus were now, James was sure. And besides, any question of Harry's parentage from that particular avenue would be settled pretty quickly come the next full moon. 

He stood up and walked over to the window, but restrained the urge to start pacing. Instead he let his gaze wander to the row of houses spread haphazard down the other side of the street. Even if he didn't already know his neighbors, James would still have been able to tell the Muggle homes from the Wizarding ones just by the quality of the light coming from the windows; the harsh, steady glare of Muggle electrical lighting alternated with the softly flickering splotches of light from the candle-lit Wizarding homes.

And what had Harry meant about Snape, anyway? He had scoffed at James' concerns about Snape being a Death Eater, but then he had accused – and the accusation was baseless, James maintained, he had known Snape for a long time, and the man had always been evil –James and Sirius of somehow having influenced Snape into becoming a Death Eater… _if_ he was one. So what did that mean? Was Snape in Voldemort's service, or wasn't he? Or did Harry not know himself? He had certainly acted as if he did, one way or the other…

This is all Snape's fault, James thought sourly. First the slimy Slytherin bugger almost ruins what was left of James' chances with Lily, then, even in his absence, he manages to mess up James' relationship with his son. 

His son. How did that happen? If James had felt insecure about being the father of a toddler, then the situation he was now in was nothing short of terrifying. James was totally unprepared for this… how was he supposed to play father to a teenager he had just met, a son he didn't even know? One whom he didn't understand at all? Because it was clear to James that Harry had his own mind, but it was one whose working James could not even begin to fathom from what little information he had. For what did he know? He knew what Harry was/had been like as an infant, namely cheerful, good-natured, and carefree, but that knowledge did him little good when dealing with teenage-Harry. He knew that the boy was a sixth year, a Gryffindor, (which was something, at least,) that he was Seeker on the Quidditch team, and that he _didn't_ habitually break the rules, supposedly, without a good reason. So what was the good reason behind breaking into the Department of Mysteries and using a malfunctioning Time-Turner to travel fifteen years into the past?

Although Harry's behavior gave James the impression that he hadn't planned on their meeting any more than James had. 

And there was something else to it that James couldn't quite put his finger on. Yes, this situation they were thrown in was serious, but it wasn't pressingly so; no one was in any immediate danger. And yes, it must be weird for Harry to meet two people, his parents, who he had known all his life, but who don't know him at all, and their conversation had been understandably awkward at times – but there had been more to it than that, a strange tension that James was unable to account for… something… _off_. And the more James thought about it, the more obvious it became. Something was definitely off.

The silence of the house, lacking even the normal cheerful crackling of the hearth, was such that James was able to hear the door swing open softly, and he looked up in time to see Lily peek her head in through the door. She smiled when she saw him, but it was a strained sort of smile, telling him that her thoughts were elsewhere. 

"Harry's asleep," she said as she walked up to him and slipped her hand into his, "both of them. You know, at the very least, when this mess's all over, we'll know whether or not we want another kid." He gave her a half-hearted grin, but he was busy with his own thoughts.

"Lily…" he began slowly, somewhat wary of revealing his misgivings – but then, Lily was his wife, if he couldn't talk about this with her, who could he talk to? "Lily, did that seem… _odd,_ to you?"

Her grip on his hand stiffened suddenly. "What do you mean?" she asked, with just a bit of warning in her voice.

James' mouth was suddenly and inexplicably dry. "Well…" he continued, despite a growing sense of doubt at her reaction. "He – Harry – it, uh, it just didn't seem _natural_, if you know what I mean."

Lily let go of his hand entirely. "There's nothing natural about Time-Travel, James," she said matter-of-factly.

"Well, yes, I know…" he floundered, "But…"

Her eyes narrowed. "But what are you implying?"

"I'm not implying anything," he said defensively. "I'm just saying, didn't it all seem just a bit… forced? If you consider –"

"Don't say it, James."

"Don't say what?"

"You know what."

"No, I don't think I do," he couldn't help retorting, even though he knew it meant losing his composure. "Why don't you enlighten me?"

Lily was up for the challenge. "Don't say that he's not your son."

James was momentarily flabbergasted. "Are you saying there's a possibility he isn't mine?" he asked.

Lily blinked at him for a moment. "What?" she asked, obviously taken aback at his reaction, before the full meaning of his question dawned on her, and James realized, with growing horror, that he'd once again stuck his foot in his mouth. "No!" she yelled, outraged. "James! How could you even _suggest_ that?" and then she went off on a rapid tangent, of which James could clearly decipher "imbecile" and "why did I marry?" before getting back to the point, "I meant, don't say he's not _our_ son."

"Oh." James suddenly felt very stupid. "Well, you have to admit, it's a possibility," he said, more to save face than out of actual conviction, but he'd be lying if he said the thought hadn't occurred to him.

Lily was far from satisfied. "And tell me, James, if he isn't our son, then just who is he?"

James shrugged with all the nonchalance he could muster, which didn't turn out to be much. "A Death Eater?" he suggested.

There was a pregnant pause, and James wondered if he had gotten in over his head this time. "A Death Eater?" Lily repeated, in a voice of deadly quiet. 

"Yeah, how do you know he's really Harry?" he elaborated. It was too late to take it back now, but he wouldn't have anyway; the idea had merit, and it was too dangerous to disregard. "I mean, sure, he looks like me, but that can be faked rather easily, _as you well know_. What's to say he's not really some Death Eater hoping to impregnate the Order? Really, who better to impersonate than my son?"

Lily gaped at him. "_Who better to impersonate than your son?_" she repeated. "Listen to yourself, James! That doesn't make any _sense_. I know the Death Eaters have come up with some far-fetched schemes before, but you can't seriously think they'd get this creative? _Anybody_ would be better to impersonate than Harry. It doesn't make any sense!"

"You can't know that," James said stubbornly. "Who knows how creative or coherent Death Eaters are in the future. If You-Know-Who is anything to judge by, then sanity is a commodity they have precious little of as it is and are losing steadily. It's all the Dark Arts spells, if you ask me; it fries what few brain cells they had to begin with. I wouldn't put anything past them, and the very fact that you don't consider it a possibility makes it a good plan."

"Harry's not a Death Eater, James," Lily said angrily. "He's your bloody_ son_. Do you think Helen's stupid? Do you think _I'm_ stupid? She had him tested for _everything_, James. She gave him the strongest Truth potion we had and he didn't even blink! And nobody else would have been able to floo in through the wards; I didn't give him the passwords. Even _Sirius_ still needs the passwords to bypass the wards, and he practically lives here!" 

"If he really came from the future, then he'd have all the antidotes and counter-spells worked out already –"

Lily brandished an accusing finger in front of James' face. "You're just upset that your son cares more about the War and the Timelines then about bloody _Quidditch_," she said coldly. "He may look like you, James, but he doesn't have to _be_ you. Merlin knows he has more sense."

James' scowl deepened in the face of his wife's irritation. "But that's just the thing!" he exclaimed finally, "My son shouldn't _have_ to care about anything other than Quidditch!"

Lily opened her mouth to speak, paused, and then visibly deflated, much to James' relief. She took a step back and crossed her arms across her chest. "Well then, I guess he shouldn't have taken up Time-Travel as a hobby, should he?" she said, but her words were flat, and she looked more tired than angry. James felt compelled to hug her. Her hair framed her face in deep red, and her bright green eyes – Harry's eyes – sparkled unnaturally from beneath her fringe. "What are we going to do, James?' she asked dejectedly. "This - on top of everything…" It was all the incentive James needed. He did hug her, and they stayed like that for a long time. : )

**Author's Notes:** Please keep in mind that this is a Work in Progress, and everything written is susceptible to revision – constructive criticism is always appreciated, so please review! Next chapter Harry spends some time with James, and meets Sirius, among others, and we get some of our first hints of The Plot. Because there shall be a plot, even if it kills me – or Harry, rather. Heh.


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